This invention relates to a device which is useful for carrying out checks on filled capsules, in machines for filling capsules with respective doses of a powder-like or particulate product.
Known is (e.g. from Italian Pat. No. 887,793) that for opening, filling and sealing gelatine capsules, there are machines comprising cyclic operation units, provided each with a corresponding plurality of actuating members, spaced apart at regular intervals, and being each driven of continuous rotary motion.
In the machines of this general type, which are commonly employed for processing products of a medical nature, it would obviously be a matter of importance that the constant weight of the doses be held under continuous control, and that control extended to include evaluation of any deviations from said weight which are attributable to one or another of the proportioning devices in said plurality. The capability of discriminating from the plurality of proportioning devices the ones which happen to be out of adjustment would in fact enable simpler and quicker adjustment procedures or of restoring the machine to its normal operating conditions.
However, it appeared heretofore that the design complexity, and above all the high speed and production rates, of such machines would hinder the application of that type of control, and in particular selective extraction of the capsules from the machine after the filling thereof by any proportioning device, as well as the conveying of the filled capsules to a dose metering device, although there are available selective control pulse generators, dose metering or proportioning devices, and attendant processors, of an electronic type, which exhibit extremely short operation and response times.